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Posts Tagged ‘border’

MEPs will assess the situation at the Greek border with Turkey on Tuesday from around 16.30, with Commissioner Johansson and the Croatian Presidency.Since the beginning of March, thousands of people have been attempting to cross the Greek-Turkish border by land and sea, after President Erdoğan announced his country would no longer stop them doing so, as it has been since 2016 in exchange for EU financial aid.MEPs will assess the impact of Ankara’s move on the relations between the EU and Turkey, the actions by the Greek police towards migrants and refugees as well as the Greek government’s decision not to accept any asylum applications for a month, among other issues. President Erdoğan visited Brussels on Monday, where he met with EC President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel to discuss the latest developments at the border of his country with Greece.

Western Union, a leader in cross-border, cross-currency money movement and payments, today advanced its leadership in digital payment innovation enabling customers to move money or make payments in real-time in India, one of the world’s fastest growing economy.Western Union became the first money transfer operator to offer cross border remittances via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a real-time payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India under Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines. It allows Western Union customers globally to send money into bank accounts in India simply by using the receivers UPI ID, instead of providing bank account and routing details.The announcement executes upon Western Union’s strategy to expand its services across emerging markets and open new growth areas as the company leverages its core cross-border assets – including global settlement capabilities, network, compliance and technology systems – to enable international cross-border payments in minutes. Western Union cross border remittances via UPI will be available for senders in over 200 countries and territories via Western Union’s retail network in the last quarter of 2019, and progressively thereafter on WU.com and Western Union mobile app commencing with the U.S. and followed by the rest of the world.

By Jon Allsop. Last week, the Associated Press detailed the inhumane conditions imposed on hundreds of migrant children at a US border facility in Clint, Texas, near El Paso. Other stories followed the AP’s coverage; the children, we were told, had gone weeks without a bath or clean clothes, slept on the floor, and taken care of each other after the Trump administration separated them from their parents. These details were shocking. But they were secondhand. As The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi noted yesterday, the government, as is common, blocked reporters from the facility; instead, lawyers who visited in order to monitor conditions fed their observations back to the press, which they don’t normally do.
In recent days, similar testimonies have swelled in our media. Sometimes, however, it takes an image for a horrible truth to land with full impact. Yesterday, the AP shared a monstrous photo of a different—yet clearly related—tragedy at the opposite end of Texas’s border with Mexico. On Sunday, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, a migrant from El Salvador, and his daughter Valeria, not yet two years old, were swept away as they attempted to cross the Rio Grande. On Monday, Julia Le Duc, a journalist with La Jornada, a Mexican newspaper, photographed their bodies as they lay washed up on a river bank across from Brownsville; Valeria was bound to her father by his black shirt, her arm crooked around his neck. The image unleashed an immediate outpouring of emotion. On CNN, Don Lemon choked up as he talked about it. “That is what the immigration crisis looks like,” he said.Commentators and major news outlets compared the image to the photo, taken in 2015, of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee whose body washed ashore in Turkey after he drowned trying to reach Europe. Politicians did likewise: “It’s our version of the Syrian photograph—of the three-year-old boy on the beach, dead. That’s what it is,” Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, said. CNN, The Guardian, and others noted that the Kurdi image had a profound, galvanizing impact on the tenor of the migration debate in Europe. “It remains to be seen” whether the image from the Rio Grande “may have the same impact in focusing international attention on migration to the US,” the AP wrote.
There’s no question the Kurdi image resonated. It spread like wildfire on social media; by one estimate, 20 million people saw it in just 12 hours. Donations to refugees soared as politicians in multiple countries promised to work harder to resettle them. But did it actually change anything? One year on from Kurdi’s death, his aunt told the BBC that, in her view, following the initial shock, “everybody went back to business”; the same day, Patrick Kingsley—then The Guardian’s migration correspondent, now at The New York Times—wrote that “Small shifts in policy and discourse have proved to be temporary.” Donations and online interest dropped off. As migrants continued to come to Europe, politicians closed their borders, and the anti-immigrant rhetoric that felt suspended post-Kurdi returned. Three years on, the BBC found migrant children living in horrifying conditions in camps in Greece; some as young as 10 had tried to kill themselves. “A photograph, no matter how emotionally wrenching, can only do so much,” Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, wrote for Quartz in 2016. “The fact is that there will be no sudden emotional tipping point triggering aggressive humanitarian intervention. Empathy is important, but not sufficient.”
Of course, the situations in Central America and at the US border are different from what has happened in Syria and in Europe. But Slovic’s words ring loudly this morning, as do many of the details of Kurdi’s story and the inaction that came next. Children crammed into camps, children separated from their parents, and children washing up dead are all grim common threads. We cannot allow collective inaction to become another. Our job now is to apply pressure to those who have the power to take action, and to keep that pressure up for as long as it takes. (font: CJR Editors)

Civil Liberties MEPs confirmed the agreement reached with EU Council on new measures strengthening the European Border and Coast Guard Agency in a vote on Tuesday.
The changes to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) aim to remedy the current shortcomings and better respond to the present needs in security and migration.
The revision of Agency includes setting up a new standing corps to support EU countries on the ground in border control and return tasks as well as in the fight against cross-border crime. Starting with 5 000 operational staff in 2021, the standing corps would be fully operational by 2027 with 10 000 staff.Civil Liberties MEPs backed the deal in a vote by 33 votes in favour, 13 against and no abstentions.The agreed text now needs to be formally approved by the Parliament as a whole and the Council of the EU before entering into force.

Ensure solidarity towards the countries most affected by migration challenges Direct funding for local and regional authorities for integration policies Funding for strengthened borders and more efficient visa policy Additional funds to help member states combatting terrorism and organised crime Parliament backed on Wednesday increasing the EU budget for migration and asylum policies, to reinforce borders and to support member states in the area of security.
MEPs endorsed the renewed Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), whose budget for 2021-2027 will increase up to €9.2 billion (€10.41 billion in current prices, 51% more than in the previous financial framework).They also voted in favour of creating an instrument for financial support for border management and visa as part of the new Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF), with a budget of €7.1 billion (€8 billion in current prices) for seven years. And they agreed to reinforce the existing Internal Security Fund (ISF), more than doubling its budget for 2021-2027, up to €2.5 billion budget in current prices (€2.2 in 2018 prices).The AMIF should contribute to strengthen the common asylum policy, develop legal migration, in line with the member states’ economic and social needs, contribute to countering irregular migration and ensure effective, safe and dignified return, readmission and reintegration in non-EU countries.But it should also ensure “solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility between the member states, in particular towards those most affected by migration challenges, including through practical cooperation”, MEPs state. They also want to make sure that funds can be allocated to local and regional authorities, and to international and non‑governmental organisations, working in the field of asylum and migration.The instrument for border management and visa will provide funding to build and enhance member states’ capacities. The funding dedicated to member states (60 % of the total envelope) will reflect their needs and take into account additional pressures. Furthermore, a new EU thematic facility (40% of the total envelope) will ensure flexibility to channel emergency funding to member states and EU-level projects when urgent action is needed.
MEPs also added safeguards to ensure that actions and measures funded through the Instrument comply with the EU’s fundamental rights obligations, in particular with the principles of non-discrimination and non-refoulement.The reinforced Internal Security Fund (ISF) will focus on tackling terrorism, violent extremism, radicalisation, organised crime and cybercrime and assisting and protecting victims of crime.Up to 60% of its budget will be allocated to member states. The remaining 40 % of funds will be reserved for unforeseen security challenges, allowing for rapid response to emergencies and the channelling of funds to the member states that need them most.Parliament backed the AMIF with 374 votes to 260 and 49 abstentions. The instrument for financial support for border management and visa got 473 votes in favour, 169 against and 39 abstentions, while the ISF was passed with 481 votes to 142 and 49 abstentions.With these votes, the Parliament closed its first reading. Negotiations with the Council will be left for the next legislature.

FAIRFIELD, Ohio/PRNewswire/ DNA Diagnostics Center® (DDC® or the Company), the world’s largest immigration DNA testing company, is ready to assist in reuniting families by providing expedited, legally-binding AABB-accredited immigration DNA tests, including sending trained professionals to all detention facilities, ensuring legal chain-of-custody protocols are followed.The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) oversees the regulations pertaining to immigration DNA testing and only laboratories authorized by the AABB may be used. In the current situation, paternity-, maternity-, and siblingship DNA tests adhering to AABB standards are acceptable—ancestry DNA tests are not a legally binding solution. DDC processes over 1 million DNA samples each year in our accredited laboratory and has helped millions of families since 1995. The Company is highly-experienced and well versed with testing requirements in accordance with the United States Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) for conducting genetic testing to verify and establish relationship for purposes of immigration.In addition, the Company has a long history providing contract services to other governmental agencies, both state and county, for relationship chain-of-custody tests related to Title IV-D parentage cases for enforcing child support. DDC currently has contractual partnerships with 22 state agencies, including Texas, plus the District of Columbia for family relationship testing services. Connie Hallquist, President and Chief Executive Officer of DNA Diagnostics Center®, states: “DDC is standing by and ready to assist our country with the current immigration challenge on our border and with parent/child reunification. As the world leader in immigration DNA testing, we have the accreditations, processes, systems, capacity, and experience to quickly provide U.S. government-sanctioned immigration DNA tests.” Once DNA samples are received at our Ohio-based laboratory from our professional collection team, results are ready in 1-2 days. Since 1995, DDC employees have been dedicated to providing trusted answers for families and government institutions and are ready to assist our country now.
DNA Diagnostics Center® (DDC®), founded over twenty years ago, is one of the world’s largest private DNA testing companies with offices in Fairfield, Ohio (United States) and London, England (United Kingdom). DDC® offers DNA testing for paternity, immigration, forensics, genetic traits of animals, and ancestry.SOURCE DNA Diagnostics Center, Inc.

Plans to set up an integrated EU border management system, with a flagship European Border and Coast Guard agency, bringing together Frontex and national border management authorities, were backed by the Civil Liberties Committee on Monday. They would enable extra border guard teams to be rapidly deployed to EU countries whose external borders are under pressure. National authorities would still manage their borders on a day-to-day basis, but could seek help from the new agency in a crisis.“The EU needs safer, better managed external borders and thus the European Border and Coast Guard (EBCG) as soon as possible. The European Border and Coast Guard is not a silver bullet that can solve the migration crisis that the EU is facing today or restore the Schengen area. Yet it is the first step without which the rest of legislative proposals to tackle the migration crisis and save Schengen as initially foreseen would be a fruitless battle. We need to show Europeans that the EU can make a decision and can be efficient”, said rapporteur Artis Pabriks (EPP, LV).MEPs amended the original proposal to make the new agency more efficient in dealing with the challenges faced by the EU at its borders, with regard to both migration and internal security and with the aim of preserving free movement within the Schengen area, and increasing transparency and accountability to the European Parliament, while respecting the sovereignty of EU member states.Specifically, they amended the original Commission proposal so that it is up to member states (in the Council) to decide on the intervention, by qualified majority, and not the Commission. The draft regulation was approved by 40 votes to 10, with 5 abstentions.

Plans to turn the EU’s Frontex border agency into a common border and coast guard, which in emergencies could be deployed even without the approval of the country concerned, will be presented by the EU Commission and the Dutch Presidency of the Council to Civil Liberties Committee MEPs on Monday at 16.30. MEPs will also debate systematic checks at external borders and European travel document proposals.
The Commission presented the border and coast guard package on 15 December 2015 to ensure strong and shared management of the EU’s external borders. The package also includes:
· a regulation to establish the European border and coast guard,
· a revison of the Schengen Borders Code to introduce mandatory systematic checks on EU citizens entering and leaving the EU, and
· A European travel document for the return of illegally staying third country nationals.
The Commission’s proposal aims to:turn Frontex into a European border and coast guard agency,
which, with its own 1,500-2,000 staff and equipment, would no longer have to rely entirely upon member states’ contributions and could, in urgent cases, deploy agents even without the approval of the country concerned,establish a European “return” office within the new agency. In urgent situations, rapid return intervention teams could be deployed either at the request of a member state or by decision of the EU, and introduce mandatory systematic checks on EU citizens and third country nationals entering and leaving the EU.

After the success of the first edition, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) are today launching an update of their guide to European law on asylum, borders and immigration. As well as updating the material contained in the handbook published last year, the guide is being made available in a further two languages.The Handbook on European law relating to asylum, borders and immigration, which builds on the experience of a previous joint project between the two institutions, was welcomed in particular by lawyers, judges and immigration practitioners, who work on such issues on an everyday basis. Altogether, the handbook has so far been downloaded approximately 26,000 times from the FRA and ECtHR websites.
It is the first comprehensive guide to European law in the areas of asylum, borders and immigration, taking into account both the case-law of the ECtHR and that of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). It also contains the relevant EU Regulations and Directives, as well as references to the European Social Charter (ESC) and other Council of Europe instruments.“The area of asylum and migration is increasingly important, and we are glad to be able to offer such a useful tool,” said FRA Director Morten Kjaerum. “After the tragedies we have witnessed over the last few months, we see there is a real need for such guides to assist practitioners in the field to improve respect for fundamental rights at Europe’s borders.”“The very positive feedback on this publication indicates that there was a significant need for a manual on the various aspects of European law in these areas” said Court Registrar Erik Fribergh.Today’s handbook updates the material previously published in English, French, German and Italian, and is additionally being published for the first time in Hungarian and Spanish, with more language versions coming later this year. It is aimed at lawyers, judges, prosecutors, border guards, immigration officials and others working with national authorities, as well as non-governmental organisations confronted with legal issues in the areas covered by the handbook in all these countries.The manual focuses on law covering the situation of third-country nationals in Europe and covers a broad range of topics, including access to asylum procedures, procedural safeguards and legal support in asylum and return cases, detention and restrictions to freedom of movement, forced returns, and economic and social rights.

A Caritas team has been assessing needs of migrant workers fleeing violence in Libya and stranded on the Egyptian-Libya border in Salloum. Around 6000 migrant workers are stranded in Salloum and around 5000 people are arriving daily. Asian and African migrants wait two to six days to be processed through the border. They are the difficult cases because of the lack of documentation or lack of embassy support to assist in repatriation efforts. The team says most of the basic needs of migrants in Salloum are being met, but there is an urgent need to speed up the repatriation process.
Caritas has sent another Emergency Response Teams to the Libyan-Tunisian borders in order to assess the refugee’s needs and set up emergency aid. In addition to that, Caritas is working in close collaboration with its national member organisations in Niger and Libya. According to IOM, 172,874 people, mainly migrant workers, had left Libya up to 2 March. Of those, 79,199 went to Egypt, 91,175 to Tunisia and an estimated 2,500 to Niger. However, the IOM pre-crisis migration figures for Libya were estimated at 2.5 million migrant workers, of which ca. 1 million were Egyptian workers (Source: IOM and UNHCR Joint Appeal for Massive Evacuation of People fleeing Libya into Tunisia, presented to Member States on 2 March in Geneva

Bruxelles. Bulgaria and Romania have moved a step closer to having their border checks with the borderless Schengen area lifted. A Council decision that both comply with data security requirements for joining the “Schengen Information System” border control database was approved by the Civil Liberties Committee on Thursday. Parliament is consulted on both countries’ accession to the Schengen Information System (SIS), the sophisticated database used by border control agents to exchange information in the fight against crime and illegal immigration. A report by Carlos Coelho (EPP, PT) approving the Council decision, which is the first step towards lifting the border checks, was approved in committee with 36 votes in favour, 1 against and 3 abstentions. An evaluation working group had verified that Bulgaria’s and Romania’s branches of the SIS system (which are not yet connected to the central database), ensure satisfactory levels of data protection and came to a positive overall conclusion, thus opening the way for further tests. These tests are to begin before the end of the year, says the Council Decision approved by the committee.